Transcript

There have been some resignations. You expected or anticipated there would be some dissent within the environment movement?

PHILL PULLINGER, ENVIRONMENT TASMANIA: Look, absolutely Airlie. Certainly the environment movement is a very broad and very diverse group of people with very strong and passionately held views.

So it's always difficult to build and find a 100 per cent consensus across such a broad and diverse group of people.

Nonetheless, it's been quite amazing, quite heartening to see how broad a consensus there has been across the environment movement and how strong a commitment people have been making towards wanting to, in good faith, try and find common ground with the timber industry.

AIRLIE WARD: Why did you feel the need to email members of the forest reference group telling them not to speak to the media, to refer them onto the dedicated negotiators?

Some people have said that that's really an attempt to muzzle speech.

PHILL PULLINGER: One of the important things about this process has been about trying to build some safe space where parties can come together in good faith in a trusting environment to try and speak frankly and fearlessly and find common ground.

There has been a forest reference group that those environment groups involved directly in the talks have been coming back to on a weekly basis.

There's 30 environment groups from across the State that have been involved with that forest reference group, it's been meeting weekly and certainly from the very start all of the groups and participants involved in that forest reference group agreed that they wanted that space to be a safe space where everyone could frankly and fearlessly speak their views, put their hearts on their sleeves about the multiple difficult issues that we're having to work through in good faith as part of this process.

AIRLIE WARD: There's been some expression of concern that the negotiators are focusing almost sort of single issues on native forest logging and that broader issues are being ignored.

PHILL PULLINGER: I think that certainly from where we're coming from and certainly where the environment groups that have been parties to these talkings haves have been coming from and certainly the environment groups involved in a broader foreign reference group is wanting to deliver a holistic solution to the conflict over forestry in Tasmania.

So that means not only addressing the need to protect native forests but also working through the issues of water catchments and getting integrated catchment management assist and put in place, addressing some of the management problems and concerns about the way that plantations are managed, some of the community concerns and the sense of disenfranchisement that certain parts of the community feel about their engagement in the forest planning process.

AIRLIE WARD: Some people obviously within the environment movement are obviously feeling disenfranchised because they've resigned.

PHILL PULLINGER: Certainly. As I said there's a very big broad, diverse, constituency across the whole of the environment movement.

And people with very strong views, very passionate views and diverse views and finding and building a consensus across such a broad diversity of views is a very difficult process.

Particularly when we're also trying to find consensus and find common ground with the industry where there's been a polar divide for 30 years.

AIRLIE WARD: Just finally, percentage, 70, 80 per cent? In terms of confidence of their actually reaching a conclusion that the majority will be satisfied with.

PHILL PULLINGER: Look I am very hopeful, I feel very positive about how these talks have been going.

AIRLIE WARD: Percentage, 70, 80, 90, 50?

PHILL PULLINGER: It's hard to say and it's hard to put a percentage on and certainly there's been ups and downs along the way and there's no doubt that there's going to be problems and pitfalls along the way.

AIRLIE WARD: So you're not completely confident.

PHILL PULLINGER: I am very hopeful that we can get there and we're doing everything that we can to try and do so.